


a room in marble for ten million won

by regrettably



Category: Khiphop, Show Me the Money (Korea TV)
Genre: M/M, the name wonjae is used 141 times in this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:34:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23973094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regrettably/pseuds/regrettably
Summary: “Do you,”  Wonjae feels around for his phone, finds it under the huge tie-dyed shirt Wonjae-hyung was wearing earlier.  “Think it’s that easy to change, hyung?”
Relationships: Woo Wonjae/Choi Wonjae | Kid Milli
Comments: 5
Kudos: 71





	a room in marble for ten million won

**Author's Note:**

> hope you didn't come here expecting anything good or thoughtful 
> 
> also look I'm sorry about the wonjae/wonjae-hyung thing I know it's bad you try writing about two people with the same damn name okay

**cokun**

wonjae-yah~~~ look what I found!! how come you never showed me these?

[link] 11:08

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


8:32 hyung

**wonjae-hyung**

oh?? fuck is this??? woo wonjae messaging first???

what do you want 9:44

wow you’re a mean bastard today

9:49 maybe I just wanted to congratulate hyung on his new album

**wonjae-hyung**

then you would say just that

so… 9:50

10:01 maybe I just wanted to say hyung looks really good lately 

**wonjae-hyung**

you some kind of pervert now 10:02

**wonjae-hyung**

tell me more 10:11

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“They don’t put corn on pizza in America.”

A greasy kernel misses the cardboard box, lands on the floor next to Wonjae’s pants.

“The corn is alright… but the onions…”

“I think onions can go on pizza. Maybe this is too many onions, though.” Wonjae-hyung pinches some corn from a layer of cheese. “Y’know, the other day I had a pizza that had cucumbers on it? Cucumbers? Like, that shit’s fucked up.”

“Can’t believe we’re eating this.”

“Why? Does Jay Park not let you eat pizza?”

“No, just,” Wonjae goes for another slice, thighs squeaking against the real wood floor, “We just ate.”

Wonjae-hyung’s lips are still red from chicken feet and fried squid. Wonjae gets a whiff of his hair as he leans forward, smells restaurant gas burner smoke. One round of drinks, another, another, another. Stagger into a taxi, Wonjae-hyung’s arm around his neck, breath hot in his ear.

“So? You didn’t come here just to eat?” Wonjae-hyung grins, downs a shot of soju and chases it with warm beer. Some of the beer misses his mouth, dribbles down his neck, pools in his collarbones. 

“Told you. Came to tell you your album sounds good.”

“Liar. It’s alright.” Wonjae-hyung shrugs, talking through a mouthful of cheese and tomato sauce. “Nothing as good as you’d do. Kinda think you came here for something else.”

“Told you this too. Came here to say you look good.”

Wonjae-hyung snorts. “You really think so? You really like all this shit?”

All this shit is faded orange hair over his eyes, tucked behind his ears, matted to his forehead with sweat. Lacquered nails and glittering rings wrapped around his beer can. A diamond stud twinkling in his nose. A bruising hickey on his chest, right over his heart. Scribble-covered skin reflecting all unnatural blue from his computer screen in the corner in the dark room. Sitting in his underwear on the floor opposite Wonjae, bobbing his head to the trippy slow Japanese jazz he put on, a pizza box between them.

“Yeah.” 

“Crazy.” Wonjae-hyung flicks a piece of corn, it hits Wonjae in the ear. One of his legs is stretched out and his toes dig into Wonjae’s bare thigh. “Some days I like this.”

“...and some days?”

Wonjae-hyung abandons his half-eaten slice on the ground, missing the box as he reaches for Wonjae’s hand.

“Some days, wish I could look like this.” He traces over the skull on the back of Wonjae’s hand with the pads his thumbs. Works his way up Wonjae’s arm, rests at the skeleton on his shoulder. Follows the curve of every rib under his fingertips. Wonjae holds his breath. “Y’know. Just slice all this off. Just be bones, or whatever.”

Wonjae exhales long and slow as Wonjae-hyung pulls back, searching for the drinks. “You probably wouldn’t be as much fun if you were just bones, hyung.”

Wonjae tips his head back, gulps a shot he forgot was already poured. It burns all the way from his tongue to his stomach. Wonjae-hyung, laughing, ignores tradition, pours Wonjae another then swigs straight from the bottle.

“It’d be a lot fuckin’ easier some days, though.” Soju beads on Wonjae-hyung’s lips. He drags his fingers through his hair, a mess of orange and black framing his face. “But it’s cool, I’ll change it all again soon.”

Wonjae swallows his shot wrong, stifles a cough. His heartbeat speeds up just enough to be out of sync with the bass drum in Wonjae-hyung’s jazz. 

“Do you,” Wonjae feels around for his phone, finds it under the huge tie-dyed shirt Wonjae-hyung was wearing earlier. “Think it’s that easy to change, hyung?”

It’s a bass solo now. Wonjae-hyung clinks his black fingernails on the soju bottle in time with the bassist’s run up the fingerboard. “Your style, maybe… why?”

Wonjae flips his phone in his hands. Studies the back of the case, presses on the cracks in the screen protector.

“I was going to show you something,” Wonjae focuses on Wonjae-hyung’s fingers circling around the neck of the bottle, the stretch of his inked knuckles around green glass. “But now I think it might kinda… kill the, uh, vibe?”

Wonjae-hyung puts the bottle down, draws his knees in, cross-legged. He leaves a red footprint behind on Wonjae’s inner thigh.

“Nah, show me.” 

“Hyung, really…”

“You brought it up.” Wonjae-hyung holds out his hand, runs his tongue along his lower lip to catch the last drops of soju. “You gotta show me now.”

Wonjae passes the phone over, lingers with his hand in Wonjae-hyung’s. Wonjae-hyung rests his head on his knees while he looks at the picture on Wonjae’s screen. He taps his toes against the floor, screws his eyebrows together. His back is hunched and all the bones stick out, forming tiny mountains under his skin.

“Is this... you?”

“Yeah. A hyung sent me the post recently.”

Wonjae-hyung brings the phone right up to his face, squints, grins. 

“Well, look at you! You were a pretty fuckin’ cute kid!” He laughs. Wonjae shakes his head. “What’s wrong? You upset someone put your old pictures online?”

“No, it’s not that, really…” Wonjae-hyung’s cheeks are flushed, sweaty. Wonjae licks his lips. His tongue feels heavy, too big for his mouth. “It’s more, like, the pictures make me... uncomfortable?”

“Uncomfortable?”

“It’s, like, I haven’t seen a picture of myself like this for a long time, and now that I see it… I don’t know, it’s like I don’t know who that is? I don’t even remember being like that?”

Some of his Gyeongju dialect that he had thought was buried deep resurfaces. Wonjae-hyung blinks at him. Wonjae rubs at the thorns on his neck.

“This is going to sound fucking stupid, but… I don’t know. Even though I’m doing okay now, I’m doing good… I just can’t stop thinking that maybe Woo Wonjae then wouldn’t be proud of Woo Wonjae now? That he wouldn’t like the Woo Wonjae now?” He speaks so low his voice melds together with the bass in the jazz. “Is that kind of fucked up?”

Wonjae-hyung stares at the photo in silence, head bowed. The playlist changes to some kind of lo-fi Japanese boom bap. 

“Help me up. I need a smoke.” Wonjae-hyung hands the phone back.

Wonjae takes one last look at the photo. A scrawny middle school kid. Big head, twiggy arms. Skin dark from summers playing in the sun. Huge toothy smile, uneven teeth, eyes almost closed. Wonjae shuts off the screen. 

He helps Wonjae-hyung to his feet, fingers tangling together, Wonjae-hyung’s hair brushing against his face. Wonjae-hyung stumbles into him, sways on his feet.

“Fuck. What happened to my pants?”

Wonjae looks around at the racks of clothing against each wall, the piles of trendy hats and deconstructed shirts and expensive sneakers on all the furniture, the shoe boxes stacked on the floor.

“How do you find anything in here?”

“I sell off most of the old clothes, y’know?” Wonjae-hyung fingers a sweatshirt with a strange frilly collar on the nearest rack. “Can’t afford to keep them all. And even if I could, if I didn’t sell them, I’d just… like, stay the same.”

Wonjae finds his own pants, digs out a pack of smokes and a lighter.

“Hyung. Here.”

Wonjae-hyung wraps fingers around his wrist, leads him over to the window, struggles with sliding it open. Wonjae slips a cigarette between Wonjae-hyung’s lips, flicks the lighter. The flame shines in Wonjae-hyung’s eyes and he comes close enough for their foreheads to touch. Wonjae-hyung sticks his head out the window to exhale so Wonjae does the same. They dangle their arms out the window, shoulder to shoulder, and blow spiralling trails of smoke up into the Seoul sky. 

“Before I started rapping, I lived in this shitty little place.” Wonjae-hyung rolls his cigarette loose between his fingers, back and forth. “It was on top of like, three gopchang places and a PC room and a Thai massage place and, like, a church?”

The moon is behind the clouds and the street below is quiet, dark. Rows of villas with stone walls and red tile roofs raised above parking spaces for expensive cars. Smooth pavement and clean gutters. The streetlights are dull and there’s the faint rumble of a highway in the distance.

“And there were all these PC go-stop places and crappy bars and it was always so fuckin’ loud and bright and smelly and there was garbage and shit, like, everywhere… drunk ahjussis always yelling and fighting…” Wonjae-hyung smiles to himself, coughs. He points down the street. “I worked all the shitty shifts at a CU, and if I stuck my head out the window of my place, I could see that CU, and it pissed me off so much… so fucking much…”

Wonjae-hyung takes a long drag. He leans his head on Wonjae’s shoulder and his dark roots tickle Wonjae’s chin. Smoke curls from his nose.

“All that time, all I wanted to do was move to a street like this one.” The tip of Wonjae-hyung’s cigarette glows a soft orange, reflects on his cheekbones, his lips. “But now that I live here, I kinda wish there was a CU on the corner so I could grab a beer whenever I wanted, you get me?”

“Uh, yeah. I think so?”

A cool breeze blows Wonjae-hyung’s hair into his face and he shivers. Wonjae tucks an arm around his waist. His hips are bony, his skin clammy. “You think so? Am I fucking this up?” 

Wonjae lets out a mouthful of smoke. “Maybe a little.”

“Shut up.” Wonjae-hyung laughs, gives him a half-hearted shove. “I’m trying to say that, like, I think maybe no matter where some people are, they aren’t ever really satisfied? ‘Specially people that do music… like how many of us do you know that are happy, like really happy?”

Wonjae thinks of Sohee, Kiseok, Myunghwan. He looks at Wonjae-hyung’s overflowing ashtray on the window ledge, his arms blackened out with cover-up tattoos, the rows and rows of glass bottles stacked up by the front door. 

“Now, _that_ is fucked up.”

“Yeah, it is.” Wonjae-hyung flicks his cigarette butt into the ashtray, nuzzles his head in closer against Wonjae’s shoulder. “Siyoung-hyung once told me that all we can really do sometimes is trust that other people do really like us. Even when we don’t like ourselves.”

Wonjae tightens his grip on Wonjae-hyung’s hip, holds him just a bit more. “Do you think that really works?”

“Dunno. I think Choi Wonjae then would’ve liked Woo Wonjae then.” Wonjae-hyung sighs, smiling faintly, looking past the buildings to where the mountains should be, “And Choi Wonjae now thinks Woo Wonjae now is pretty alright.”

Wonjae stubs out his cigarette on top of Wonjae-hyung’s, mashes the ash all together. His face is hot, the night air makes his cheeks tingle. The playlist changes to some bright Japanese pop, it takes Wonjae a second to realize that it’s some of Wonjae-hyung’s otaku shit. He can’t help it, he laughs. Deep and drunk and from his stomach. He can’t remember the last time he laughed this hard. Wonjae-hyung takes a step away, covers his face, laughs into his hands.

“Hyung.” Wonjae gulps air, trying to control himself. “You going to show me a school picture of you, or what?”

Wonjae-hyung shakes his head, still grinning. His earrings jingle together. “Not a chance.”

“Why not?”

“Just because Choi Wonjae then would’ve liked Woo Wonjae, that doesn’t mean Woo Wonjae would’ve liked Choi Wonjae.”

Wonjae-hyung tucks his hair behind his ears, wets his lips with the tip of his tongue. He looks so good lit up by the dim streetlights. Soft, shiny, wispy. Pretty. Wonjae leans in close, so close their noses bump and he smells Wonjae-hyung’s chicken feet breath.

“Woo Wonjae likes Choi Wonjae.”

“Oh yeah?” Wonjae-hyung whispers. “How much?”

Wonjae cups Wonjae-hyung’s face between his palms. Presses the skull up against his cheek and runs a finger down his stained bottom lip before he kisses him. Wonjae-hyung tastes like greasy food, cheap drinks, nicotine. He parts his lips for Wonjae. Lets him take wet open-mouthed kisses, lets him slide his tongue in. Wonjae moves from his mouth down to his chin, drags his tongue along his jaw. Sucks slow on the ink behind his ear, the flowers on his neck. Wonjae-hyung gasps, holds Wonjae’s head in place, digs those polished fingernails into his scalp.

“Fuck. Okay, okay. Fuck. Fuck.” Wonjae-hyung hisses as Wonjae licks down his throat. Wonjae skims his fingers down his chest, over his stomach. Lower, in his underwear. Wonjae-hyung’s knees buckle. “Fuck! Wonjae, Wonjae-yah. Bed. Okay?”

Wonjae nods into Wonjae-hyung’s neck. Guides him over the soju bottles, the clothes crumpled on the floor, kicks the pizza box out of the way. 

Wonjae-hyung lies on sheets marred by old scorch marks and cat hair. He pulls Wonjae onto his lap, orange falling over cheeks tinged pink, chest heaving up and down. Wonjae pushes Wonjae-hyung’s hair back, puts his thumb in his mouth. Wonjae-hyung smiles around it, reaches up to touch Wonjae’s skulls and bones, scrape his fingernails on his ink. 

His eyes are unfocused, heavy. He holds Wonjae’s thumb between his teeth, motions with his head. Come on, Wonjae.

Wonjae rolls him onto his stomach. Takes his wrists, holds them to the mattress. Presses his chest to Wonjae-hyung’s back, kisses where his shoulder meets his neck.

“Kind of, kind of-” Wonjae-hyung’s voice, muffled, shakes. “-seems like Woo Wonjae likes Choi Wonjae a lot.”

“Yeah,” Wonjae murmurs low against his skin, “He does.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**wonjae-hyung**

hope you're happy motherfucker

[photo] 4:32

Wonjae opens a photo of a kid with a messy head of thick hair and a barely there smile. He’s wearing a blue school uniform and blowing a kiss to the camera. 

woah hyung so cute

4:46 I would’ve liked you then for sure

**wonjae-hyung**

you’re one sick bastard you know that 4:48

**wonjae-hyung**

thanks 4:59

  
  
  
  


  
  
  
  



End file.
